Thousands of plucky New York children trudged to class through sleet and freezing rain yesterday as unionized yellow-bus drivers brought school transportation to a halt with a strike that will make life hell for families across the city.

“It’s hurting the kids,” said 23-year-old mom Erika Rivera, who had to miss work and borrow a car to take her niece to PS 36 in The Bronx. “And it’s hurting all of the parents who have to find a way to get their kids to school.”

The work stoppage left more than 113,200 city schoolkids without buses, forcing parents to scramble to find any way they could get their children to class. Some dug into their pockets to pay for subways, taxis and dollar vans — othets even propped their kids on the backs of bicycles for a treacherous ride.

Upper West Side dad Martin Wallace hoarded five elementary- school kids — including his 5-year-old son, Bruno — onto the 1 train to PS 84 on West 92nd Street.

“I like the school bus, it’s not packed,” Bruno said outside school.

Wallace said, “The inconvenience is that I have to make the trip [with them] rather than just wait at the bus stop.”

The strike — which affected roughly 75 percent of students who are eligible for school bus service — hit the disabled hardest. Many of them aren’t able to use public transportation or regular vehicles to travel.

“It’s impossible for Jessica to get there without it; no bus, no school,” Maria Sanmartin said of her 6-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy.

The 46-year-old Sunnyside mom worries about the physical and speech therapy her daughter is missing — and will miss — by being unable to get to PS 58 in Maspeth, Queens.

“She has too many problems for there to be no school bus,” said Sanmartin. “She likes going to school, and she loves riding the bus.”

Attendance was down 2.8 percent yesterday compared with the rest of the month, meaning at least 25,000 students were out. For the severely disabled, attendance dropped by 41 percent.

At City Hall, Mayor Bloomberg said he has no plans of meeting with leaders of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union over the removal of job protections from recently bid-out contracts because bus drivers and matrons work for private bus companies rather than for the city.

Asked about whether he’ll take certain steps to ensure the strike doesn’t last as long as the prior one in 1979 — 14 weeks — Bloomberg said he’d encourage the union to hold talks with the bus companies.

“I hope this does not last a long time,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “It’s not going to last more than June — because that’s the end of the school year.”

Union leaders, who insist the decades-old protections must be reinstated into the bus-company bids, said Hizzoner’s decision would ensure yellow buses remain off the roads.

“We remain willing to come to the table to work towards an agreement, and we urge the mayor to adopt a similar attitude,” said Amalgamated Transit Union Mike Cordiello, president of Local 1181.

More than 125 special-education buses were unable to leave their Staten Island depot yesterday because, while the drivers belong to a nonstriking union, the matrons were on the picket lines.

NYPD sources said roughly 1,800 union members stocked picket lines at bus depots across the city. There were no arrests or vandalism reported.

Even before the crippling school-bus strike began yesterday, Nadine Gardener’s typical day was pretty hectic.

Now, it’s nearly impossible.

Until drivers walked out, the Queens mother could rely on the school bus to get one of her two sons to school and back.

Yesterday, Gardener had to get them both from her St. Albans home to the kids’ Jackson Heights school on staggered schedules, twice making two-hour round trips involving buses, trains, transfers and four-block walks in the freezing rain.

The boys — 7-year-old first-grader Nileke and 4-year-old Malchi, a half-day pre-kindergartner — are dismissed from school several hours apart, so for their single, stay-at-home mom, she has to travel about four hours in one day.

“It’s a struggle for me,” said Gardener, 38. “ I don’t normally take them both on the bus and train. I think it’s wrong and unfair. This trip is very stressful for me.”

On a normal day, Gardener would have put Nileke on the school bus at 6:30 a.m., then accompany Malchi on an MTA bus and a train.

But after yellow-bus drivers refused to roll yesterday, Gardener had to haul both boys on public transportation at the height of morning rush hour.

Their day started with a 7 a.m. MTA bus ride to Jamaica, where they caught the E train and then transferred to the 7 train at Roosevelt Avenue for a ride to 90th Street. From there it was a four-block walk to the school.

“PS 222; praise the lord!” Gardener said when they finally arrived at the school at 8:15 a.m. — 15 minutes late for the start of classes. “It’s exhausting.”

Two hours later, after the pre-kindergarten session ended, she took Malchi back home — only to head back out to pick up Nileke in the late afternoon.

Gardener makes the trip every school day, but usually with just one child. Yesterday, she had to do it twice — with two fidgety kids.

She was particularly nervous about having both boys on the subway together, especially during transfers, where she carried Malchi up and down the stairs and tried to keep Nileke from running into other commuters.

“This is quite the exercise,” she said, panting.

Gardener said she’s not sure how long she can keep this up.

“I wasn’t going to take Nileke,” she said. “But I didn’t want him to miss a day of school. I think a lot of kids will miss school, because some parents can’t afford to take off work to take them.”

Nileke said he, too, wasn’t happy with the arrangement.

“I like taking the [school] bus,” he said. “I get to see my friends, and it’s easier.”

Dana Sauchelli and Leonard Greene

Dad and bike tykes roll with punches

Without a school bus to get his boy to class in Brooklyn yesterday, diligent dad Evan Houtrides lifted his kickstand, strapped his son to the back of his bicycle and pedaled his way through the problem.

Seven-year-old Demetrios’ little sister, Eleni, came along for the ride to get Demetrios to his Gowanus school from Boerum Hill in the driving rain.

“I’m not sure if it’s something we can keep doing,” Houtrides said outside PS 146.

He pedaled back home with Eleni, but his schedule kept him from making a return trip, so his wife had to pick up their son in a car.

Houtrides said he was glad for the extra time with his kids, but today will take the train.